We Can Only Ever Try
by the-speed-reader
Summary: She can't be anywhere too bad, right? Right?


_So this came out of nowhere._

_Yup._

_Also guys, if you have a tumblr please go to mine a reblog the link to the post under the All About Me? section. I really need this._

* * *

"_Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much._" -Oscar Wilde

* * *

She wakes slowly, one hand curled lightly underneath her head, pillowing in a way that was strangely more comfortable than any pillow she'd ever used. The other hand was reached out lightly in front of her, the fingers curling into the sheets as if trying to find something to cling on to. To hold tight. Her eyelids flutter— once, twice, and it's the third and final time that's she's finally flickering open to a rather bright light streaming through a large, six-paned glass window to her right.

Wait.

_What_?

She jerks up then, her heart pounding and her pulse suddenly escalating. She takes in the room around her; it's a rather simple one, save the window. High ceiling. White carpet so white she feels like spilling wine on it _just because. _The bed is made of oak and the mattress is one of the most comfortable ones she's laid on in a long time (which is good, considering for about three years she slept in a van) and when she moves to get off of the sheets, she forces herself to calm down. To think. She can't be anywhere too bad, right? _Right_?

It's then the door opens.

_Wrong._

He's staring at her, his expression rather guarded. She screams, panicking, scrambling away from her former S.O. and when her back hits the opposite wall, he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. He steps forward and she swears, harshly and loud.

"What the _hell _is going on?" she breathes, but then he's a few feet in front of her, reaching out towards her.

"Skye—" he starts, but is unable to finish because she's moving towards him. Her hand connects with his cheek with a sizable _crack _but she's unable to take in the satisfaction before she's bolting, moving towards the door he came in at. She almost makes it — _almost _— when there's hands jerking at her waist, pulling her back. She screams again, loud and desperate. She needs to get away from him. She _needs _to.

His breath is hot by her ear as he holds her against him, one hand pressed tight against her stomach and the other pinning her arms back. There's a sharp pain then in her right rib and she breathes heavily, keeping from screaming again. She won't give him the satisfaction.

"Slow down, Skye," he tells her, his voice low. As if looking to keep quiet. "You're hurt — you need to _calm down._"

She only struggles, but as if all at once becomes acutely aware of a sharp pain in her side again. The sound that comes out of her is one that she cannot keep back, and it's a little bit of desperation and a little bit of pain all at once.

He swears. "Skye," he whispers to her, "I'm going to let you go know. Promise me you won't run."

"Like hell," she spits, and then there's a sigh before there's cold metal encasing her one of her wrists. When he does let her go though, jerking away from her attempted punch, she lunges at him — only to swear when her hand gets caught. She swears again when she realizes that he's cuffed her to the bed.

"Asshole," she glowers at him. "You son-of-a-bitch, let me go!"

"Skye," he insists, raising his hands in a non-threatening manner. She doesn't buy it. "I know you don't trust me and there's no reason that you should—"

"Damn right," she spits.

"—but right now I need you to. You have to trust me."

She almost believes him. _Almost. _Her heart wants to, _aches _to. But he's a killer.

A monster.

She squares her shoulders and stops jerking against her bonds. "Explain," she hisses.

And he tells her how he found her a few miles out of a little place called Five Forks, in the state of South Carolina. (The name doesn't ring a bell.) She was bleeding apparently and unconsciousness — he took her and brought her back here, a hotel smack down in the middle of the town.

"How did you find me?" she asks, unsure of whether to believe him or not.

He hesitates and warning bells sound in her head. "There's a tracker on you," he tells her and she growls, narrowing her eyes. "Skye, I've been out of prison for three months now. I've been working undercover — for Coulson."

Her head is spinning. "_Liar,_" she spits. "Coulson would never take you on. Not after everything you did."

His mouth parts before his eyes flicker shut. He swallows. "I'm sorry," he blurts out. "I never meant to hurt you. You weren't supposed to be part of the damage. Hell — you were never part of the equation."

She takes a deep, shuddering breathe, carefully ignoring his last words. "I need to talk to Coulson," she blurts out. "Then I'll believe you."

He stares at her for a long second before nodding carefully. His fingers reach for a pocket in her side and she tenses, but it's only a simple phone. A burner phone, from the looks of it. He puts it on the ground and slides it across the floor so it bumps against her foot.

At her raised eyebrows, he shrugs. "I don't trust you not to hit me again."

She thinks over that for a moment — and agrees.

She picks up the phone, keeping one eye carefully on Ward. There's only one number on the phone and she clicks it before holding it up to her ear.

There's ringing, before: "_Ward? Is that you? Did you get find Skye?_"

She nearly chokes. "Coulson," she whispers, and the man's voice turns to one of relief.

"_Skye? Is that you?_"

"Yes," she tells him. "What's going on?"

"_You won't like it._"

"Tell me," she demands, and he does.

He tells her of how he broke Ward out of prison. How he recruited him to work as his own private agent. How Ward has changed.

How she can trust him.

She's looking straight at Ward when she says, "He's handcuffed me to a bedpost."

Ward rolls his eyes, while Coulson, after pausing, says, "_Did you hit him_?"

"…maybe."

He asks for the phone to be handed to Ward, and she skids it across the floor again. Ward picks it up, and within a few seconds is nodding before saying, "Yes, sir."

Ward looks up at her. "If I come near you, will you hit me?"

"No," she hisses, jerking against her bonds. The pain in her middle is slowly getting worse. "Let me go."

And he does, releasing her bonds. She rubs her wrists, muttering a thanks. Skye looks up at him, her expression determined. "What next?"

He tells her.

She still doesn't know if she can trust him. Fully trust him — after everything that's happened, she doesn't think that's possible now.

But she can try.


End file.
